Nick Barlow's blog

After all, they’re a modern, progressive and liberal party, the party of the metropolitan elite, the one with all the forward-thinking ideas. A truly internationalist party you might say, one that looks outward to the world and has a positive attitude towards it…

They’re also the party that will sell you this:
I wonder how many Ed Miliband’s bought for his family?

How did the First World War actually end? – Paul Mason explains some of the causes of history, and how our accounts of the war are often missing out the social and labour movements that were very important in it.The Fake Sheikh and me: Tulisa talks – I wouldn’t normally link to a showbiz story, even in the Guardian, but the fascinating details in this are the lengths Mazher Mahmood and the Sun were willing to go to for an entirely manufactured story.“Open Door Policy” – Andrew Hickey on the realities, rather than the tabloid headlines, of living with Britain’s immigration policy.Work less, live more, do better – Is working too many hours actually meaning we’re doing less? Written from the perspective of working as an academic, but much of the information is relevant to many fields.Two politics – Chris Dillow on the difference between politics-as-policy and politics-as-celebrity.

We could’ve been anything we wanted to be
But don’t it make your heart glad
That we decided, a fact we take pride in
We became the best at being bad

If you don’t know it, it’s from Bugsy Malone, but for me it sums up a lot of my feelings about the coalition. I know it seems hopelessly naive now, but there was optimism back in May 2010, and a feeling that this was a government that might do things differently. Instead, that optimism has been methodically dismantled, piece by piece, as the government’s revealed itself to be even more cynical and mean-spirited than its predecessors, and the Liberal Democrat leadership has collaborated in this rush to the bottom, eager to prove that it can be just as horrendous in Government as the Conservatives and Labour.

Clegg’s immigration speech on Friday was just the latest humiliation in this series. I’d say it shows him reaching the abject depths of political cynicism and triangulation, but there are so many times he’s gone and drawn deep and deeper from that well that I wouldn’t be surprised to see him going deeper on something else. LIke the immigration speech, it’ll no doubt start with a few paragraphs of boilerplate liberalism, then veer wildly into appeasing tabloid sensibilities and saying we must support invading Iran and introducing ID cards while removing all benefits from anyone Iain Duncan Smith doesn’t like the look of.

The one flash of a silver lining is that the mood in the party feels much more mutinous than it has done at any point in the last few years. The leadership have dumped so many petty humiliations on the membership in recent times, from secret courts to Clegg’s speech, that a lot of people seem to have finally felt the straw that broke their back. (For instance, see Stephen Tall’s post on LDV and the comments below it) Any residual goodwill from Eastleigh and the party conference has been dissipated, and perhaps the only thing preventing a full on howl of rage is that most activists have one eye on the fast-approaching local elections.

What we have to decide as Liberal Democrats is not just whether we as a party can take two more years of this, but whether the country can survive two more years of it. As I’ve stated before, we came into this government because we thought it was in the national interest to do so, but it’s now clear to me that we’re merely supporting a narrowly ideological administration that’s on the verge of condemning the country to years of economic stagnation while dismantling the social framework. I think it’s time to end the coalition, but I also think we’re now beyond the point where those in the party who want to continue it can just trot out the ‘we have to show coalitions work, that’s why we can’t leave before 2015′ line. You have to show what will actually be achieved in the next two years beyond getting to sit round the cabinet table and showing we can make ‘tough decisions’.

It’s also time to question whether we need to replace Nick Clegg as leader. He’s shown a complete disregard for the party and its opinions, and when his statements get reported as being party policy, despite them being the complete opposite, it drags us all down with him. The question we need to answer is whether we want a leader who’s at war with his party, and seems to want to replace it with another, more pliant, membership or one who wants to actually lead a liberal party and make the case for liberalism, instead of capitulating and triangulating in the face of any criticism.

To got back to the start, what kind of party do we want to be? A liberal party, making the liberal case or a party that ranks power over principle?

Well, that’s cleared all the lingering dog whistles from last night. For more on this, and to save me just echoing everything she wrote, go and read what Jennie has to say.

Just think, this time next week it’ll all be over, unless you have local elections and they’re finding it hard to get enough staff to count them all, and you’ve got several wards where the result is really close, and they’ve all had to go to recounts, and then the Returning Officer, with the look of someone who can barely remember what sleep is, decides you’ll all need to come back tomorrow to finish off. So, unless that scenario happens – and I know I’m tempting fate for Colchester by writing it here – the election will all be over by this time next week. And that’s when the screaming starts…

Or there’ll just be the realisation that while the people have spoken, we’re not quite sure what they’ve said and as liquidating the electorate and replacing them with a new one isn’t anyone’s policy (well, the first half comes close to the BNP) we’ll just have to go back and ask them again in 6-12 months to see if they’ve changed their minds. Electoral staff may be one of the growth industries of the next few years, if only we can find a way to export them for profit. Sadly, that would likely involve persuading another country to adopt an FPTP electoral system, which they seem reluctant to do so.

For another perspective on what might the situation this time next week might be, go read Chris Brooke.

Back to the debate, and an interesting post from Channel 4’s Gary Gibbon looking at how the pollsters weight their panels for the debate response polls. The information he provides leaves a very large question mark over just how accurate any of the post-debate polls have been, especially given that ‘the leader of the party I support came first’ appears to be the most common response. Still, anyone who watched Charlotte Gore’s version of the debate would have enjoyed it. If I had any animation skills at all, I would be working on a version of MegaMultiLeaderMechaRobot vs GimletEyedBearFascist Stomp Attack!, but I don’t so I just have to hope someone else is inspired.

That’s all from me for today – another 300 deliveries to take the total to a nice round 3,000, but no doors knocked today, as I had a terrible night’s sleep last night and don’t think that falling asleep on someone’s doorstep as I wait for them to answer the door is a good way

This weblog is purely a personal site and unless explicity stated otherwise any opinions stated are purely personal and do not represent those of Colchester Liberal Democrats, Castle Ward Liberal Democrats or Colchester Borough Council.